Bab Zuweila is one of the three remaining gates of Old Cairo. This gate was built in 1092 when Badr Al-Jamali, the Fatimid vizier, built a second larger wall around Cairo, as it was increasing in size, and Bab Zuweila was the southern gate of this wall. The gate has a square shape, with a height, width and depth of 25 m and its entrance has an arched wall above it. On the right and left sides of the gate, there are two circular towers. When Sultan Al-Muayyad built his mosque in 1415, he chose those two towers to build the mosque’s minarets on top of them. The minarets offer a beautiful view of Cairo from the top.

Bab Zuweila’s popularity doesn’t come from its shape or height; it comes from the interesting incidents that happened on these gates. Perhaps the most famous incident is when Qutuz, the Sultan of Egypt, cut the heads of the Mongol messengers of Hulagu and hanged their heads on Bab Zuweila. The messengers were delivering a threatening message from the Mongols to Egypt and at that time the world believed that the Mongols were invincible, so Qutuz killed the messengers to prove that the Mongols were humans and to make his troops believe that they can defeat the Mongols. And indeed Egypt was the first country in history to repel a Mongolian invasion. Another famous incident that took place at Bab Zuweila was the killing of the Last Mamluk Sultan of Egypt, Tuman bay II, by the Ottomans, which ended the Mamluk era of Egypt and signalled the beginning of the Ottoman era.